Ragtime
by mrs robert crawley
Summary: SPOILERS. My take on what happened after Cora said that brilliant line! Sorry if its too much M but there's fluff as well near the end! :) xxx


AN: This story is my take of what I think what happens after that bedroom scene. Sorry if it's too M but there is fluff at the end cause I thought it fit. Reviews are welcome, enjoy! xxx

* * *

Cora could just about take in the shocking sight of seeing a black man standing in the great hall of Downton Abbey. But what threw her completely off her feet was seeing her stoic, uptight, aristocratic, English husband describe the event as 'fun' and sweep her into his arms to dance. He didn't even ask or say anything just extended his arm and knew she would take it gladly. After feeling his thumb slowly rub her back for a second time while swaying to the modern music, she felt her knees go weak. Damn that man, just when she thought she knew everything about him down to a T, he would do something like this. In an effort to distract herself from other certain 'fun' activities they could be doing that did not involve every member of the family watching, she tried to make conversation.

"Happy birthday darling, I hope you're enjoying your day."

His wife's low, sultry tone of voice brought Robert back down to Earth. He was day-dreaming rather vividly about what Cora's 'present' had been last year, so he had to focus on a point on the wall rather than her intoxicating sapphire eyes and her seductive crimson, low-cut dress.

"Thank you my dear, I am enjoying every minute of my birthday, other than the fact that I am now one more year older." He frowned at the thought of being considered old by anyone but one couldn't say he was exactly young either.

"Quite the contrary Robert, in my opinion, you are just more experienced, and I really don't think you understand how handsome you look with silver in your hair."

Robert chuckled, "I hate to disappoint you Cora but my hair is grey, not silver or handsome, I'm lucky I still have all my hair actually."

"You don't think it is but sometimes when I see you in a particular light or wearing a particular colour, all I want to do is take you right upstairs and run my fingers through your hair. And Robert please don't say things like that to me, I think I'd have to get a divorce if you ever woke up bald one day." Cora could barely contain her smile but she so enjoyed when she teased her husband from time to time.

"You don't mean that, if I woke up one day bald, you probably wouldn't notice until after you've had your way with me in the morning. Plus, you're only using my hair as an excuse for all those times we were late for dinner; you just like to make me messy." Robert was after bending his head down closer to her ear so he could whisper, making his wife shiver from the warmth of his breath on her neck.

"Robert Crawley, you really are incorrigible I would make you sleep in your dressing room, if it wasn't your birthday."

Just then the song ended and Robert broke apart from his wife chuckling to himself, and thinking about Cora's gift she said she had for him later in the night.

* * *

"Come to bed and dream of ragtime." Robert didn't need to be told twice and bounded over to their bed with a youthful bounce in his step.

"But, Cora, you still haven't given me your present." He said and jutted out his bottom lip, feigning innocence while he got under the covers and turned over on his side, making Cora do the same so they were face to face.

"Well since you were so insulting during the dance, I didn't think you'd want it." Cora was smiling now so he knew she was only teasing. Robert put his hand on her waist and pulled her flush against his body, placing his knee in between her legs and whispering his reply a centimetre from her waiting lips.

"Oh come on Cora, let's do something that will really frighten the servants." He could feel his wife smile in response just before she lunged hungrily for his lips. Shifting his muscular arms beneath her body, he rolled over, removing his thigh from between hers at the same time, so that she was straddling his waist, chest against chest.

The kisses were hungry and passionate but not frenzied, even though a night of verbal foreplay and teasing touches was starting to take its toll and the two lovers, they tried to take their time and savour each moment. Robert could only take so much of encircling his lips with hers and turning his head in nearly practiced synchrony, before removing his hands from his wife's waist and moving them to capture her face. He plunged his tongue into her mouth needing to taste the scarlet riches of her treasured abyss.

Cora answered her husband's tongue with hers, moving them together with an alien need. She grinded her hips into his hardened member that she could feel becoming more aroused beneath her by the minute, eliciting a low animalistic groan to erupt from the back of his throat. Robert reached his hands down and broke apart from her again, prompting her to remove her nightgown. Cora grinned and happily obliged before she bent her head to suck on the delicate skin of his neck, swirling her tongue in fiery paths of flushed, heated skin. Robert was thrilled beyond belief to discover that she had nothing on underneath the nightgown, but he didn't have time to do anything about it before she bent her head again, distracting him totally.

Robert was letting go and becoming completely undone at the hands of his wife, his large calloused palms traced flames over her feminine, pale flesh, causing her to tremble with anticipation above him. He moved his hands over every inch of her body while she set to work on removing his pyjama shirt and doing delicious things to his chest.

Robert drunk in the feel of her silky, edible skin, he ran his hands over the swell of her behind, gently squeezing and rubbing her lower half into his restrained, aching arousal. He dipped the pads of his long fingers into the hollow of her spine and lower back, gradually trailing them lower. When he started to draw rings of slow burning, erotic ecstasy on the inside of her smooth thighs, he felt her stop in her attentions to his chest and falter in her already heavy breathing. His circling fingers crawled slowly up ward until he reached the juncture between his wife's legs. But even then Robert did not enter her core, instead he continued to swirl and turn his fingers just outside it, making her arch her own form involuntarily into his and pant in rapid succession.

Cora ached for him to stop his agonising teasing and satisfy the now excruciating need deep inside of her. But suddenly, she remembered that today is Robert's special day, he should not be doing the satisfying. He was still wearing his silk pyjama pants for Christ's sake! With that thought, Cora returned notice to her husband's chest but started to sink lower and graze her nails slowly up his sides, putting the weight on her knees and simultaneously causing Robert to stop in his attentions between her legs. She could sense his initial confusion when he froze below her, but she continued to creep down his perspiring frame at a deliberate, leisurely pace.

The only thing Robert was aware of, was his wife moving further down to where he now needed her most. So much so, it was starting to get painful and he unwittingly grasped the delicate, white silk of their bed to focus on something other than what she was about to do him. Cora was placing little kisses on his thighs now, while running her hands up and down them before firmly grasping his impressive length in her right hand. When she tentatively attached her lips to his shaft, he moaned and sighed at the same time, creating a low-pitched strangled noise that vibrated through his form violently. Taking this as encouragement, she covered his manhood with her mouth and stretched her tongue lazily over him, moving her head back and forth to capture him entirely in her sadistically pleasurable enchantment.

Robert couldn't take it anymore, his wife had driven him to the point where he had started to thrust his hips into her mouth, his vision was flashing and his senses were on hyper drive, feeling every magnified sensation so intensely it was unbearable.

"Cora…" Her husband's voice was raspy and desperate, a warning that only she could understand. Cora knew that he was close, hearing his sighs and groans only served to turn her on more and she knew she would be ready to take him into her. Without so much of a look, she released his shaft from her blissful hold and moved to straddle his waist, she hovered directly over him and placed her palms on his broad chest for leverage. They both hissed aloud in sweet unison when she slid down his erect member and Robert took hold of her slender hips while thrusting up to meet her.

They created a thrilling rhythm together that made everything feel so high and abstract. He loved it when she took control and was on top, because gave him better access to drive himself deeper into her and stroke her exquisite figure with the adoration and worship one would give to a goddess. Cora rolled and pounded her hips against him, igniting a forceful, intense passion that was combusting in the enthusiastic blaze of their devotion, booming within them both. Robert could feel himself letting go but wanted so desperately to go over the edge with her, he reached up and caressed her breasts roughly, craving with all he had for her to join him in elated excitement. Finally he felt her convulse and pulse around his throbbing arousal, causing Cora to shudder powerfully above him and Robert to give in to his inevitable, divine desire. Sounds of reaching that ultimate euphoria together of shouts, moans and groans wafted through the thick, humid air as she slumped on top of his torso entirely spent and satisfied, and he encased her with his large toned arms protectively.

* * *

"I have to say, that was a very good birthday present darling." Robert smirked at his wife who was still reclining atop of his chest, playing with the silver curls there, that is until she froze at his sentence.

"What do you take me for!? A wife who doesn't get anything for her husband on his birthday? Really Robert you truly are incorrigible." Cora had pushed back from his body with her eyebrows raised and her head tilted. He recognised this as her don't cross me face, which he had seen her give to Isobel or the occasional servant. Although Robert couldn't think of what she could have possibly gotten him and really wasn't expecting anything, he decided to go along with it rather than push her. Even if he did stand by and fully believe that what they just did together was very good indeed.

"You got me a present Cora? But I thought I told you not to get me anything."

"Well do you want it? Or you going to shut up and let me give it to you?"

Robert gaped at his wife who had begun to laugh at him and start to move off their bed. He reached out quickly and wrapped his hands around her waist from behind, dragging her back under the covers. Cora shrieked aloud and giggled when he swept his fingers lightly over her abdomen, tickling her sides.

"Oh Robert! Please stop! No!" She could barely get the words out between her shrieks and screeches, kicking her legs in the air and moving the sheets everywhere.

"Well apparently I have to shut up while my wife gives my present to me. You haven't seen her around have you? I just can't see her anywhere!" Robert was laughing now and struggled to keep tickling Cora. He loved messing with her like this when they could let all the insecurities and duties of being a Lord and Lady fall away and just be Robert and Cora.

"Well she must be a fool to marry you! Robert; stop!" He stopped teasing his wife when he realised how loud they were being and collapsed against his pillows laughing uncontrollably.

"I'm sorry Cora but I do love joking with you! Do I get my present now?" He looked up at her with big puppy dog eyes and battled with the urge to laugh again. She did not reply directly to him but wrapped a sheet around her bodice and walked over to a drawer in her vanity, removing a medium-sized box that was covered in decorative blue paper.

Robert could hear her mutter things like 'insolent,' 'annoying' and 'like a child' under her breath. But he didn't take them to heart or even care because she was going to get back into bed with him instead of storming off. He also quite enjoyed being a child at times.

He watched as she sat down on the plush mattress, blew back her hair and took a deep breath before smiling and handing him the box.

"You really didn't have to do this darling." His voice had a softer tone now, all traces of mockery was gone leaving gratitude and love in its place.

"I know," she placed her hand on his forearm softly stroking it with her thumb, much like he did to her lower back when they were dancing, "but I wanted to."

After he placed a gentle kiss on her lips, Robert ripped open the blue paper and revealed a box of handmade Cuban cigars.

"Do you like them? I didn't know what else to get you because you have everything and mother said that these were the best. I had them sent over from America you see and Harold would probably send over the wrong thing on purpose, so I just had to use mother's help. By the way she said to wish you happy birthday and to save her a cigar for when she comes over. And I'm babbling, sorry, so do you like them?"

Robert chuckled lightly and put his hand over hers, "Cora I love them, thank you very much." She scooted nearer to him and kissed his lips again, "you're very welcome darling. I'm sorry you didn't get to have one tonight with all of your friends but maybe you'd like one now?"

Her husband raised his eyebrows sceptically and looked at her in disbelief. "You want me to have a cigar now, at quarter to one in the night."

"Well it's your birthday and if you want a cigar you can have one, being honest with you I'm just not that tired yet and want to stay up with you. That is unless, you want to go to sleep."

"No, no, no. You misunderstand me my dear, I would love to stay up with you as well, it will be like when we were in our twenties again, sneaking around the house late at night." Robert smiled widely and threw his pyjamas on quickly, then helping Cora with her nightgown and robe before taking her hand and the box of cigars, leading her towards the library in the moonlight.

"So tell me something?" Robert asked as he sat down on the settee and watched Cora pour a sherry and a scotch, while he lit a cigar. "Hmmmm?" She handed him the glass when one of his hands were free and sat down carefully next to him, curling into his side with her own glass. "Since when, pray tell, does your mother smoke cigars?!" Cora snorted with laughter just as she put the clear crystal glass to her lips, coughing up burning liquid in her mouth but swallowing it immediately. The scene was so comical and un-ladylike it made Robert erupt in a fit of loud chuckles, nearly spilling his drink down his silk pyjama shirt.

Once they had calmed down again Cora lay with her feet up and her head on his shoulder, occasionally taking a sip of her sherry, with the arm holding his scotch thrown loosely around her shoulders. The only noise that could be heard was their breathing and Robert puffing on his cigar or tapping residue tobacco into the ashtray. Smoke whirled around them and created whispy swirling patterns in the air but it wasn't overbearing or surrounded them in an uncomfortable fog. It was light and mixed well with the scents of alcohol, lavender perfume and his cologne. It was one of those few unique times where they could use Downton as a home, as their home, and relax freely. Without worrying about people walking in on them or telling them they can't relax on their own settee. It was one of those rare times where it was just them and they didn't have to worry about anything or anyone.

"Happy birthday darling," Cora whispered to her husband in the dim light of the library thinking about how rare it was to see him smoking in this room or even be cuddling close to his warm body here. She cherished moments like these and smiled into his shoulder, "I love you."

Robert smiled and placed a kiss on her forehead, they didn't often say those words to each other and it surprised him. They didn't have to say it three times a day they both just knew how they felt, it was a fact. People don't go around saying 'I'm breathing' to each other, but for Robert that was what it was like. Being in love with her was like breathing. Natural and essential to live. Once in a while it was nice to hear and it was better to say, it was special, it was theirs. He was breathing.

"I love you Cora."


End file.
